26. Best Subway Lines

TWENTY-SIX

#4 F train—cutest construction workers

Iused to think nothing would ever be as bad as forgetting the choreo to my very first lead role in a play, versus a dance-only production.

At fourteen, I had the part of Lola in my high school's version of Damn Yankees. I was a reasonably good singer, but it was the dancing that got me the part. Which was why when, in my stress over learning my lines and remembering the lyrics, I completely forgot the steps to the first number, "A Little Brains, A Little Talent." I froze right there on stage, then forgot the lyrics too, and then my lines until Louis Martinez, the kid who played Applegate (e.g., "the Serpent"), whispered the next one to me. I was barely able to mumble through the number while I shimmied around the stage.

I thought that nothing that bad would ever happen again.

I was wrong.

Serving drinks topless and giving lap dances to my ex-boyfriend and his cronies while my fake boyfriend's brother watched for five hours was worse. So much worse.

So, it was with undying relief when sometime past three, the room emptied out, and I was finally able to leave, fully clothed, counting the two thousand dollars I'd made that night just from packing on the smiles, shaking my tits, and grinding on a couple of middle-aged men's knees and half-hard dicks.

Rochelle wasn't kidding when she said it was easy money. But I couldn't say it was worth it. Not with Shawn and Carrick watching me like hawks the entire time.

After that, the other servers and I paid out from our tips and left; I took a short cab ride to the 1-train station on 116th. I was dangerously half-asleep on the platform when I heard the sound of footsteps behind me. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled up with the knowledge that someone was there. Someone was watching.

"Well, hello there, Gigi."

I jumped, dropping my duffel bag full of clothes on the ground, and when I picked it up, I found Nathan's brother leaning casually against one of the tiled pillars in the tunnel, looking me over like I was a car he was planning to test drive.

He was completely out of place in the dingy tunnel, still wearing the three-piece suit from this morning. That was another key difference between Carrick and Nathan. Carrick wore suits the way warriors of the past probably donned armor, as uncomfortable, but necessary protection. Nathan, on the other hand, looked perfectly at ease in his rotation of casual but tailored menswear, hospital scrubs, and gym clothes.

I realized I much preferred the latter. Armor meant there was something underneath that was being protected. Something real. Armor wasn't something you could trust.

"Jesus," I said, pressing a hand to my heart. "Did you follow me here?"

Carrick shrugged and walked closer. "It seemed like the easiest way to get a word without any other…interested parties listening in."

I didn't have to ask what he meant. Whether it was the people in the gaming hall, Shawn, or just Nathan at home, there were plenty I didn't really want listening to the conversation I knew Carrick and I had to have.

"Plus, I don't think my big brother would approve if I didn't at least see his lady home after a long night of jiggling her tits."

"I—um—" I cringed. "Fuck."

Carrick smiled in that unnervingly canine way of his. "Sounds about right. Did you?"

"Go to hell." Something in me shriveled at his harsh words, but I forced myself to stand up straight. "What else do you want me to say here?"

Carrick stood up straighter, a fair body double for his brother. Just as tall. Just as broad.

But not quite as intimidating.

Maybe it was because I knew his intimidation was all bravado. The intensity of a man who wanted people to be scared of him. Nathan just didn't fucking care what people thought. And that had to be as intimidating as hell to a man like Carrick, who probably knew he could never quite measure up to his older brother.

The thought made me smirk.

"I'm surprised you ventured into the gutter," I said, gesturing around the empty subway platform, typically coated in grime. "Aren't rich assholes like you too uptight to get your hands dirty?"

"Nathan's the one who doesn't like to get dirty," Carrick told me before baring his teeth a little. "I always figured it was part of life. Sometimes, dealing with a little filth is necessary to get what you want." He looked me over; that blackened gaze dragged up my clothes, making me feel like I was a part of that filth. "Nice outfit, ‘Gigi.' Is that your real name?"

I'd been too tired to change out of the hot pants, so I'd thrown on my coat over the uniform Kyle had given me and left. The coat, however, was currently hanging open in the dank pressure of the underground tunnel.

I scowled as I yanked it closed. "It's a job, you pretentious dick. And for the record, Gigi is short for Giovanna. I use it so men like you don't learn my real name and stalk me."

"Too bad I already knew it. So did that shit stain. What's his name? Vamos?"

I wrinkled my nose. Apparently, we really were doing this. "Shawn. Yeah. We, um, know each other from a long time ago."

"Know each other how?" Carrick's posture was still casual as he watched a mouse traverse one of the train tracks, attentive like a predator tracking his prey.

I shrugged. "We were sort of involved."

"Involved how?"

"You know, I don't think it's any of your business."

"Tonight, I found my brother's apparently ‘serious'"—Carrick mimed air quotes as he said it—"new girlfriend serving drinks topless at an underground gambling club. Call me a concerned citizen."

I sighed. I wanted to fight him, but I didn't quite have the energy.

Also, I could see his point. Carrick was an asshole, but he was standing up for his brother. I'd probably give him the same third-degree if I'd been in his shoes. God knew my family had given Nathan grief for a whole lot less.

"This, when she's supposed to parade around our family and half our board of directors in a few days dressed like a Stepford Wife," he continued. "If word of this gets out, every deal I've made in Washington goes to shit, not to mention the family's good name. So, yeah, I think it's all my business, babe."

And now that feeling was gone.

"You're an asshole," I snapped.

"Yes, I am," Carrick bit right back like the wolf he was as he turned fully toward me. "But if you want me to keep this little secret of yours, you're going to tell me what I want to know. What exactly is your connection to Shawn Vamos?"

I paused, examining him a bit longer. But Carrick wasn't going to let me off easy.

"Shawn used to…do things for me," was all I would say. "We met when I was younger, and, I don't know, we were kind of together. We'd hang out. Now, we don't. That's it."

"Well, that's a bullshit story if I ever heard one," Carrick said. "What do you know about the Antoni Regime?"

I blinked. "The what?"

Carrick rolled his eyes. "Don't play dumb. Your boy Shawn rolls in with some of the toughest gangsters on the East Coast, and you don't know any of them? I just watched you give Lis Antoni two lap dances. It was all I could do not to vomit all over my cards."

I cringed at the memory. It hadn't been my finest moment either. But I'd had to give several lap dances tonight, and I still didn't know any of the recipients' names, much less whoever this Lis Antoni guy was.

"I don't know who you're talking about," I said. "I work for Kyle, the organizer, and this was my first night. I wasn't expecting Shawn to be there any more than I was expecting you. He and I have barely talked in months. I was just doing my job."

Carrick looked at me for a long time. "Are you serious?"

"Yes!" I exclaimed. "Look, man, some of us weren't born with trust funds and giant houses. Some of us have to do whatever's needed to pay our way in the world. Nathan knows and accepts that about me, so I don't see why you shouldn't either."

I lifted my chin, waiting for him to cut back or start another interrogation. But Carrick only continued to examine me before he finally shook his head and muttered, "Goddammit. Not again."

I scowled right back at him. "What does that mean?"

"It means my brother has a fucking type," Carrick spat. "God, this is some kind of déjà vu. It really is. And I am not going through this shit again with him. It was hard enough the last time."

I opened my mouth to ask him to elaborate, but before I could, our conversation was swallowed by the rush of the incoming train. The doors opened, and I stepped in, not even looking to see that Carrick was following me.

We took seats on one of the long plastic benches in a car that was empty except for a bum sleeping in the far corner. This was about as private as it got in New York City.

"What ‘last time'?" I pressed once we were moving. "What are you talking about?"

Carrick huffed under the harsh fluorescent lights. "What, he didn't tell you? And I thought you two were so serious."

Maybe it looked bad, but now wasn't the time to pretend I knew what the hell he was talking about.

"I don't know everything about your brother," I said. "So if there is something important, maybe just quit the bullshit and give me the truth."

Carrick turned, his wide shoulders blocking out the subway tunnel passing by the window. "You want some truth, twinkle toes? All right, here it is. You're not the first gold-digging gutter mouse our perfect Nathaniel has dragged home. Thirteen years ago, he got wrapped up with another so-called ‘dancer' who was addicted to anything she could sniff or snort. She had all sorts of ‘friends' just like your Shawn Vamos too."

I stiffened in my seat. "Nathan's never been involved with anyone like that. He had a girlfriend in college, and was engaged once, but that's it."

Carrick stared at me, disbelief coloring that unnervingly handsome face, so similar to his brother's and yet so icily different. "You don't know. Holy shit, he hasn't told you anything about himself, has he?"

I bit my lip, wishing I had changed back into more substantial clothes. It was freezing under that soulless gaze.

"The college thing is right. Nathan met Lindsay when he was at Duke. At a strip club, actually, when the baseball team took him there for his twenty-first birthday. Stupid idiot fell for the first girl to shake her tits in his face, then let her bleed him dry for months. Meanwhile, he had no clue it was because she was hooked on meth and had a kid to take care of. Nate was nothing but an easy mark."

I bit my lip. As much as I hated to admit it, I could see it happening, especially before Nathan was a doctor with enough knowledge to spot things like addiction. He missed all sorts of cues other people noticed first. I could easily imagine him as a naive twenty-one-year-old. Handsome, shy, and kind—an easy target for someone like that.

Carrick shook his head like he still couldn't believe it either. "She died trying to cook that shit herself with her dealer. Blew up a trailer and almost killed her daughter too. Isla still looks like she went through a war zone. It's because of her that Nathan's a fucking plastic surgeon instead of working at Huntwell, where he belongs. Dumb motherfucker is more interested in skin grafts than his own family's legacy. Thinks it's his ‘calling.'"

By the time he finished, my head was spinning. This explained so, so much. "But-but I'm not a drug addict," I managed to stutter. "And I don't have a kid."

"Yeah, you must be a real jackpot then," Carrick said dryly. "Let me guess, you're a stripper with a heart of gold, putting yourself through a Ph.D. program for that secretly massive brain of yours. Not it? Then maybe you're paying for a sick relative's cancer treatment. Still no? Hold on, I got this." He snapped his fingers with a loud crack. "You're a secret agent on a mission to expose the dark underbelly of New York. Am I on to something?"

I remained silent and stared at my knees. He knew none of that was true.

"Or maybe it's like this," Carrick went on mercilessly. "You're a two-bit dancer from a broken family who've mostly given up on you. You barely graduated high school, and now you can hardly keep a job because you don't have any real skills. Then my brother comes along, looking real nice, like a lottery ticket in glasses. Am I warm?"

I squeezed my eyes together, willing the tears that pricked to go away. How did he even know all that? Was it that obvious I was such a complete and total loser?

"Thought so," Carrick said, appearing to take my silence as a confirmation. "Your ‘friend' Vamos back there sings like a fuckin' canary after he's done a few lines. Even says you think you're going to marry Nathan. I'm here to tell you, it's never going to happen, sweetheart. Not on my watch."

I bit my lip harder, willing the tears in my eyes to die down. I would not cry in front of this asshole. I would. Not. Cry.

"I'm not…I'm not like her. Lindsay," I barely managed to whisper. "And I'm not using your brother. I'm not."

I wasn't like her, I told myself. I wasn't. But even I had to admit, some of the similarities were close. Too close.

"Maybe not," Carrick said as he settled back into his seat like it was a throne, not a dirty bench on the subway. "But maybe Nathan sees something in you he wants that he couldn't have back then."

"What's that?" My voice warbled.

Carrick almost looked pained to say it. "Redemption. Justice. Once he gets it in his head that something is the right thing to do, he can't ever let it go. Some might call it obsessive. I just call it naive."

I didn't answer. I couldn't. This was ten types of fucked up.

"I should have known the second he said you work in a bar." Carrick shook his head. "He couldn't save Lindsay, but maybe he thinks he can save you. Well, I'm here to tell you and him he can't. Some things, some people, are beyond salvation."

A tear streaked down my cheek before I could stop it. Was that all this ploy really was? Not a joint venture to free ourselves from limited futures, but a secret attempt by Nathan to make up for the past?"

Was I just a useless charity case to him?

A pathetic second chance to redeem himself?

"Where does he really think you were tonight?" Carrick's gravelly voice cut through my self-pity. "That lounge where you met? Out with friends? Or does my strait-laced brother actually know that his so-called ‘fiancée' spent her evening serving body shots and shaking it for gangsters?"

The look on my face clearly told him everything he needed to know.

"He wouldn't care," I mumbled. "He said he wouldn't care."

Carrick snorted. "That's what all men say when they're drunk on pussy."

At least he thought we were actually sleeping together. It was probably the only part of the charade people did believe.

"You don't understand what it's like. I need this money. Not because of drugs or kids or anything like that. But because of him." I picked at my threadbare coat and toed my Vans on the floor. "Do you have any idea how much it costs to fit in with people like you? I made him a promise, and I won't go back on it. It's only for?—"

I cut myself off before I could babble any further. Before I told Nathan's secret. Before I told mine.

"I just want to help him too," I said quietly. "And all he wants is his family's support, so I'm here to help him get that. That's all. What I do with the rest of my time is my own business. Not yours. If you care about your brother, you won't hurt him with it either."

Carrick seemed to peer right through me with those black, soulless eyes. And for several moments, I honestly thought he was going to tell me to fuck off. I was ready for him to deliver a threat. Say I wasn't good enough for his brother and that if he saw me with Nathan again, he'd share with the whole world what I was doing, not just his brother.

God, I was tired. How many more men were going to use my secrets against me tonight?

In the end, Carrick just relaxed in his seat as the train came to a stop.

"You need to tell him," he said as we both stood. "I'm not cleaning up his mess again, and you've got catastrophe written all over you. You'll learn one thing quick about the Hunt family, little girl: we're aptly named. When it comes to protecting our own, we shoot to kill. And we hit our marks every time."